“I would be so happy if @bt_uk would seriously consider the implications of advertising with such a potentially dangerous channel,” Carol Wilkie, of North Yorkshire, wrote in a typical tweet.
Mr. Neil struck back at what he called the “woke warriors,” pointing out that they were trying to cancel a channel that had yet to air a single program. GB News, he said, would cover issues from the “center, perhaps the center right” — not the hard-right approach of Fox. Its shows will offer diverse voices and stick to the facts, he insisted. Unlike Fox or BBC, GB News will not air rolling news coverage.
A combative broadcaster who until last year hosted a prime-time talk show on the BBC, Mr. Neil is famous for his forensic questioning of politicians. Prime Minister Boris Johnson declined to appear on the show during the 2019 election, drawing japes that he was scared of Mr. Neil.
“You can’t take Fox News to this market and give it a British accent,” said Mr. Neil, who once worked for Mr. Murdoch as editor of The Sunday Times of London. “It just doesn’t work.”
Mr. Murdoch did, in fact, bring Fox to Britain with unhappy results. The broadcasting regulator censured it in 2017 for twice violating impartiality standards: Sean Hannity’s coverage of Mr. Trump’s ban on people from majority-Muslim countries and Tucker Carlson’s coverage of a terrorist attack in Manchester.
Sky dropped the channel the same year, citing its small audience.
Executives at Mr. Murdoch’s venture, known as News UK TV, declined to be interviewed. But privately, they, too, play down comparisons to Fox. Unlike GB News, which is an old-fashioned broadcasting channel, Mr. Murdoch is planning a less costly streaming service, akin to Netflix or Now TV, to take advantage of that growing market.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/16/world/europe/murdoch-uk-news-channel.html
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